SQL/MX 3.2 Management Manual (H06.25+, J06.14+)

Table Of Contents
Fault-tolerant hardware and software strategies provide maximum protection against most equipment
failures, power failures, and some catastrophic failures. This protection, however, does not eliminate
your need to plan carefully to protect database and application software. After formulating a
comprehensive recovery strategy, practice carrying out the plan on a regular, consistent basis.
Using Guardian Physical Names for SQL/MX Objects
For more information about using the MXGNAMES utility with TMF to facilitate the use of Guardian
physical names for SQL/MX objects, see SQL/MX Reference Manual.
When you plan the recovery strategies that involve TMF and RDF, you must consider many options,
limits, and caveats. For comprehensive information about these and other topics related to TMF
and RDF, see these manuals:
Backup and Restore 2 Manual
RDF/IMP, IMPX, and ZLT System Management Manual
SQL/MX Reference Manual
TMF Operations and Recovery Guide
TMF Planning and Configuration Guide
TMF Reference Manual
Database Recovery Guidelines
When planning backup strategies, consider these guidelines:
GuidelineTopic
In planning database recovery, it is important to properly follow the rules for naming
SQL/MX subvolumes and files. For more information, see “SQL/MX Subvolume
Naming Guidelines” (page 73).
SQL/MX subvolume and file
naming guidelines
For SQL/MX Release 3.2, the user interfaces to the TMF, RDF, and Measure
subsystems require Guardian physical file names instead of ANSI logical names.
Using Guardian names with TMF,
RDF, and Measure
Use the MXGNAMES utility to generate the portions of the subsystem command lines
that contain Guardian file names. For more information, see “Using Guardian Names
with TMF, RDF, and Measure” (page 306).
All SQL/MX files are audited. Therefore, use TMF online dumps as the primary
method for preserving SQL/MX objects, as described in “Using TMF for Transaction
Audited files
Recovery, Database Consistency, and Database Recovery” (page 47). Preserving
files by using BACKUP is not effective for recovery if any files are open during the
backup operation. Even if you use the OPEN option, the image saved during the
dump of the database might not be consistent.
If your system has only one tape drive, be careful not to perform a long backup at
a time when the TMF subsystem might also need to dump an audit trail to tape.
Tape management
Before starting the backup, verify the status of the TMF audit trails to make sure no
dump is currently queued. If the TMF subsystem reaches its maximum file limit during
a period when the tape drive is unavailable for audit trail dumping, the TMF
subsystem suspends transaction processing until an audit trail is dumped.
If your system has multiple tape drives, you can use one drive for backups and
another for the TMF audit-trail dumps.
Backup and Restore 2 has many options that can filter the objects backed up or
restored, improve the performance of tape handling, ignore errors, and verify tape
validity. For more information, see the Backup and Restore 2 Manual.
If an SQL/MX object has the UNRECLAIMED FREESPACE (F) or INCOMPLETE SQLDDL
OPERATION (D) attribute set, do not attempt to back up, move, or duplicate the
object until the attribute is reset.
Unreclaimed free space
Planning Database Recovery 45